Choose To Love

May 12, 2014

by Bob Farrell

It's a Verb

Love is probably the most bashed-about and bandied-about word used - in any language. It’s regularly abducted to sell cars, jewelry, holiday cards, vacation cruises, bank cards, season tickets, cranberries...(somebody stop me here).

A word-driven concept so cheapened by over-use and mis-use as to become almost useless - it’s true meaning and significance taken hostage and buried under a commercial avalanche.

I personally have never claimed to be the poster-child of love - indeed the opposite has been more my habitual m.o. It’s always been easier for me to love me more than you. In fact I’m more the poster-child for the philosophy that espouses: “I love all of humanity - I just don’t like people”.

Oh, come on, Bob, that’s a seriously-skewed self-indictment.

Not really. Mother Teresa said: “Not all of us can do great things - but we can do small things with great love”.

I’d have to say that if there’s a Mother Teresa living within me she’s crippling around on two broken legs.  Maybe that's a bit over the top, but honestly my natural tendency has been to put me and mine first.

 And never was that tendency exposed and spotlighted more than when I became a believer in Jesus and learned the scripture: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son - that whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

Now there’s a concept. And therein lies the true meaning of love.

Love is truly a noun - but it is mostly a verb.

For it is something you must choose to do.
I’ve written before in this blog how much I miss my good friend Dana Key of DeGarmo and Key fame. We toured together, recorded together - and wrote together. One of my fave collaborations with Dana was in 1983 for F&F’s Choices album: “Choose To Love”.

Love is more than a word 

It’s the way I’m destined to learn

It’s a voice calling me to press on

Where I have never walked before

Into the vast unknown following the prompts of a Voice. 

Love - ageless and true 

When it’s real it’s something I do

It’s the hands of my faith reaching out

Until I’m touching you

Not thoughts - but actions.

For I will choose to love

I will choose to love

Though my heart’s afraid to show it

I’m determined to bestow it

So I will choose to love

If the natural-man in you is reluctant and recalcitrant, choose by faith to love - and release the supernatural power of the eternal God within you to touch others. 

Love was borne in a man

Perfect love flowed from His hands

Son of God with His life led the way

For every man to follow in 

He showed us the way - so walk ye herein.

Love - the choice that He made 

Selfless love - the price that He paid

So if I bear His name

How can I give any less the same

You don’t really have a choice here - it is required reading and doing for believers. But you do have the choice of whether you will follow His voice, follow His example, follow His heart.

No I am not Mother Teresa - not even close.  But I can let the God who shed His love abroad in my heart reach out to others - but only when I choose to let Him. 

Jesus said (I paraphrase): “A new command I give you: love one another as I have loved you - love them as you love yourself”.

Either way that’s a whole lotta love.










(Music and Lyrics from “Choose To Love” by Bob Farrell and Dana Key, recorded on F&F’s Choices)
Photo credit: cafejava.hubpages.com